


common tongue

by finchatticus



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Horror, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:41:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22561930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finchatticus/pseuds/finchatticus
Summary: Isabella Swan loves Edward Cullen. Edward Cullen loves Isabella Swan. They speak the same language in the common tongue of lovers. But there are things that live in the dark, and there are secrets which cannot be kept in mortality. To love forever is a gift. To live forever is curse.
Relationships: Edward Cullen/Bella Swan
Kudos: 1





	1. preface

**THERE ARE HORRIBLE THINGS.** Car accidents and overdoses and drunk driving. Bodies found on streets and prodding of doctors and unchanging diagnosis and a world of uncertainty. Decades of growth and ruin all overlapping each other; each martyr of history more certain of himself than the next.

There are terrifying things. Streaking through the woods from something that I hadn’t known existed. Shapes in the dark when I’m asleep but not asleep-in notsleep with eyes wide open and arms pinned to my side, feeling like I could scream, or tear my nails out from their beds; trapped and unmoving. Try to wake up.

There are wonderful things. The sun hitting my face In my teenaged bedroom- the three large windows that faced our backyard with its same comforting view- stark russet contrast, Arizona dirt departing from strike blue sky.

The smell of my mothers coffee, and the warm buttered toast breakfast waiting for me.

There are magnificent things. The face of God, with a smile to make this heart stop. Blood on his face. Blood that is on his mouth. Blood that is in his mouth. Blood staining his teeth. Eyes, ruby red, coruscating in the headlights of his car. My lover.

My killer.

Standing just feet from me; a wall between me and my humanity.

Between me and the rest of my life.

His voice as quiet as the step of a deer, pleading and broken.

“Come here, Bella.”


	2. the lighthouse

**THERE ARE WONDERFUL THINGS.** The sun hitting my face In my teenaged bedroom- the three large windows that faced our backyard with its same comforting view- stark russet contrast, Arizona dirt departing from strike blue sky.  
The smell of my mothers coffee, and the warm buttered toast waiting for me for breakfast. My last breakfast in this house. Moving boxes scattered across the hallways of the once modest home, my mother, frantic and uncertain in her best clothes.

  
“Mom?”

“Oh, honey, I’m just so worried.” She rounds a corner, and before I can steady myself against her weight, her arms are around me. She smells like fresh linen, and citrus. The lingering notes of a perfume that she has favored since my childhood.

“It’s not as if you can leave something behind. The house will be completely empty.” I try offering her a smile.

“Yes,” she removes herself from me, and waves a tanned, manicured hand in front of my face. “I only mean, of course, that maybe I’ve packed something away. Something that I’ll need. I can’t plan for the clothes I want to wear, you know. I just have to get a feeling for it on that very day. And if the blouse I want, or the jacket I need, is all thrown in a box somewhere, who knows when I’ll get to it.”

“Everything will go fine. Better than fine,” I try again, slowly prodding her towards the kitchen. “Moving isn’t as scary as it feels. At last you’re not doing it with Dad. When he helped me move in to my place, I had to make three trips back to Forks by myself.”

“Phil is very capable,” she said. “You know I can’t help but fuss. Nashville just feels like such a change.”

I had successfully steered her to our now empty kitchen. Yet to be packed was our coveted coffee machine, and oak kitchen table, bare of all its previous clutter.

“Of course it is,” I moved to look for a spare mug. “But,” I stood on my toes, reaching for the cupboard. “It’s equally as sunny, and equally warm. You won’t have to adjust to much.”

“Right,” I could feel her smile on my back. “It’s not as though I’ve exiled myself to Tacoma, where I’d never see the sun,” she was behind me now, moving in for a hug. “Or go dig out cactuses with my mother.”

“Mom,” I feigned a groan, though my own smile was brightening. “There is plenty of sun in Tacoma. There’s beaches, and big forests. A whole mountain. And I’m making friends, you know.”

“Yes!” Renee brightened, and took the filled cup eagerly. “First-semester-of-college-friends!” She strung the phrase together, like the words were connected. “I’ve heard so little about them.”

I turned to face her, pouring my own cup.  
“I told you that Angela is from Forks, right?”

She nodded.

“Yeah, she actually knew who dad was, it was funny. She’s studying bio, and her boyfriend Eric is going to University of Washington in Seattle, so he comes down sometimes. There’s this girl Fin who thinks she wants to do studio art, and she’s been bringing me out a lot, which is cool.”

“Have you joined any clubs yet?”

I shook my head, and stifled a laugh. “No. It’s not really something I’m that interested in. My classes keep me busy enough, you know?”

She nodded again, and looked down. Though she tried to hide her smile with her hand, I saw the question in her face as if it was written above her face.

“Okay,” she started slowly. “You know I have to ask.”

I considered stopping her. I bit my lip, and did not.

“This boy,” her voice rose in cadence, and she was eyeing me from her place a few feet away.

I let myself lean on the counter. “Yes,” I sighed. “This boy.”

“You were going crazy for a couple of weeks!”

This boy. Crazy for a couple of weeks. Crazy still. I had called my mother and informed her of the beginning details, but had quickly stifled myself into silence over the matter at hand.  
Though I was standing here in my kitchen in Arizona, I could feel the very air on the college campus, the sharp energy of that black black stare, and the heated, panicky conversations which had followed in the coming days.  
His image. His scent. The unusual tone of his voice. His hand on my wrist, burning. All of these things; all of him, permeating my memories as if he were here in the room.  
I had walked into my English seminar to see the most beautiful, assaulting image of a man I had ever seen in my life. I was impossibly certain then, that Edward Cullen had seen me, and hated me. I had sat through an hour of his unbelievable stillness, and did not see him again for nearly three weeks. The sun disappeared, and he returned, escorted by the fog and heavy rains as though the embodiment of my very own bad omen. Everything about him had transformed, including a few physical anomalies. Incredibly and incredulously, we exchanged tentative words. We worked together in class. He asked frustrating questions, and gave equally frustrating answers to mine. He stuck in my mind like a parasite. I could recount conversations with clarity unknown to me. I was brought to him like a magnet, pinned as close to his side as I could manage to be on the days he bothered to show himself. He knew literature as though he’d already written the essays we’d been proposed. I’d had him edit a few papers once I trusted that I wouldn’t be so inadequate in my ability. Impeccable grades on all counts. A walk from the library. Dim lights, chilled fog. A sharp intake of breath. His fingers, slim and elegant, first brushing the back of my hand. The lightest grip on the edge of my wrist. A ringing in my ears at even that slight touch.

My mothers slight shuffle brought back to a sun soaked kitchen. Yellow paint and yellow light. A place so much brighter.

“Yeah,” I exhaled. “He’s… confusing.”

“Men never know themselves at eighteen, darling. You’re probably learning about him at the very same time he’s learning about himself.”

“I just don’t know what to do.”

The words I spoke were true. I had been with others before. High school relationships soaked in fragile love, letters and playlists and heated bodies in the back seats of cars. This was something that engulfed me as an ocean might a wayward sailor. I was in over my head, and the water of the sea had left me with some kind of infection.

“You just steer the course, my dear.” Her arm reached out to give me a sympathetic pat. “There’s nothing to do but wait.”

I was helping my mother with her moving process for a portion of my winter break. This was in part due to my seclusion to the university, where I was much closer to my father for the first time since early childhood. I missed my mother, and I would miss the house I had grown in. Being able to stay away from the puget sound during the coldest, rainiest month of the year was also something I considered heavily in deciding on my two week stay. By the time I was landing back at the SeaTac airport, I was convinced that my erratic mother would be dragging out her moving process for as long as legally possible, dragging her well to do husband through every moment with an anxious grin.  
Muscling my way through the airport crowd to begrudgingly pay for a taxi, the weight of this landscape was pressing in on me. The fog was thick, and the drive long. Campus was small, and daunting. Pinpoints of light cut through the fog; large lampposts along the pathways that laid between main buildings. Though just on the outer city limits, pacific silver firs, and massive subalpines gathered in clusters on and around the college, creating a bubble of isolation which could make you believe you were truly cut away from the rest of the world. The walk from one end to the other was no more than ten minutes, but one could get themselves lost for hours in the westward pacific forest which seemed to slowly be making its claim on the red bricked buildings of Parsons College. Named for some estranged chemist with a knack for alchemy and occult practice, the school seemed like some beacon of mystery- a lighthouse, stoic and exciting to somebody already lost at sea. I had not visited, only gazed repetitively and obsessively at the few photos which existed online, and the information given to me by mail in thick, parent-friendly information packets. The acceptance rate was not high, somewhere in the low twenties, and I had only applied to one other school- a far less appealing large state university back in Arizona. The wait for my decision had been an agonizing number of months through which I buried myself in distractions. When I had been accepted with a comfortable scholarship, the rest of my summer had stretched before me in a delirious haze of new adult freedom, and certainty.

Little could be learned about the professors or students, as though by attending, you were admitting yourself to its quiet, elite secrecy. In my first semester I had learned that this mostly just came from its students lack of participation in the twenty first century. If a Parsons student was attending a conference at Harvard, or going to graduate school, or settling into a new job, they were not scrambling to tell their friends on Facebook about it. Instagram photos went without captions, or revealing location markers. I had been shocked and startled, when Fin had carefully showed me a few completed paintings from years past, and I had recognized the style, and even one of the pieces. Later at home I was thumbing through an old Instagram account, when I realized that Fin was already a famed painter, with hundreds of thousands of followers as an anonymous artist.  
Returning to this place, and its overwhelming feeling, was nerve-wracking, though I could not deny that I was receiving these foreboding emotions as excitement, and anticipation.  
The scholarship I’d received blessedly gave me enough money to have a say in my living situation, and I had been able to avoid the terror of the classic dorm. Instead I was in a house, owned by the college, and given a private room. There was only one other room in the house, filled by a sophomore girl named Jules that, after four months, I knew very little about. We had such a ridiculously large space, that she often filled it with guests. I would come out of my room at any hour of the day and find friends sprawled across the house, wine or cigarette in hand, having a conversation about settler-colonialism, or deontological ethics. I didn’t mind it, and found the almost constant company of acquaintances quite reassuring.

There was little for me to unpack. I had brought so little with me.  
I was still in a haze from the travel, and took a long shower, trying to motivate myself, and if not, to at least kill as much time as possible.  
I groaned at my toweled return, my phone screen betraying me. January 18. 6:32 pm. Sun far past being set. No class for a week and a half.  
Okay. Mass text. ‘Hey, are you back yet?’  
Send individually to Angela. To Fin. To Jules.  
To- no. Yes. Maybe.  
Fuck it. Why not.  
To Edward Cullen, who had very begrudgingly given me his cell phone number after I had convinced him that I still needed help with our analysis paper.  
I was continuously damning myself. A quick, ‘No, sorry!’ from Angela. . Nothing from Jules, and judging by the suspiciously quiet house, there wouldn’t be anything soon. Nothing from Fin.  
Something, of course, from Edward.  
‘Yes.’

I looked, always, at his eye first. Suspiciously gold. I felt, when they remained the same, as though I had been tricked into believing something. Like a false mask. Nothing would erase the image of that very first day. I know what I saw. And what I sometimes still did see, on his worse days, right before he vanished again. But there they were, stark and ochre in the dim light. Perhaps his eyes did hold some key for me to identify him by, but if that were true then they were the only clue he would allow to be riddled in his features. The rest of his face, always slant, always beautiful, was perfectly still. Perfectly neutral. High cheekbones and smooth skin.  
The barest twitch of his lips. A slight glimpse of perfect teeth.

“Hello, again.”

“Hi.” My voice always sounded shrill or damaged in comparison.

“How are you, Bella?”

He was standing feet from me, hands in the pockets of his jacket. Wool. Long and black, making his silhouette sleek, and violent.

“Good,” I nodded. “A bit tired. A bit bored. I just got back.”

“And you wanted to see me?”

“I wanted to see anybody,” I admitted. “I don’t prefer to be alone here.”

“And you don’t feel alone, now?”

“No,” saying the word felt like some kind of rebellion against a personal law. I never hesitated to keep his gaze. “You’re here.”

His lips parted to a slight smile. I felt something tighten. “So I am,” he exhaled. “I am glad to keep you company, at least.”

“You are?”

I bit my tongue, and resisted the urge to close my eyes. It had come out much harsher than I had meant it to.

He did not seem wounded, nor did he hesitate. “You remain incredulous.”

“You give me plenty of reason to believe that you feel hesitant at best about our friendship.” I was gaining a lot more traction than I had planned to- much faster than intended.

He broke my gaze, took his hands out of his pockets. Put them back in. His head turned, as if looking for somebody that might be approaching. The walkways were empty. Just us and the lampposts, looming above in the fog.

“Matters which-“ he paused, let out a huff. “Don’t concern you. Impact my attitudes. I’ve been going through a lot of fluctuations at once. Forgive me if I’m giving you… some sort of whiplash. It isn’t my intention.”

I was not expecting such a brazen display of honesty. Because it was, I was able to gather, as he met my gaze again, the truth. I swallowed, and took a few moments to consider. My foot scraped against the concrete.

“Hey, I don’t mean to give you the third degree,” I said. Against my own lack of bravery, I took a very slight step forward. “You’ve got stuff going on,” I shrugged. “No problem. I was just trying to find some kind of consistency. It’s hard because there’ll be this safe zone for a couple of weeks, where you’re super responsive and kind, and then something will change and we won’t talk. Feels bad.”

“I understand,” he gave me a small nod. “Really, I truly do. I’m sure that’s frustrating. I admit that I hadn’t thought about how you felt concerning the things that are happening to me, isolated. I promise that I’ll try to be more considerate if I feel like,” he hesitated again, and to my surprise, looked down. “If I feel like something will involve you in a way that I had not predicted.”

“Thank you.”

Though I had no destination in mind, I took a few steps in attempt to start a walk. I looked back at him, prompting him to follow.

“I hope,” he started as he caught up to me, in a few easy strides. “That I didn’t completely turn you away from my charm,” I could hear the grin in his voice, and I turned to swat at his arm.

“You mean from your ass-like qualities?” I raised an eyebrow in his direction.

“If being intelligent, good-looking, and funny make me an asshole,” he raised his hands, and touched his wrists together. “Cuff me.”

“You have completely pushed me away,” I feigned. “You and all your mystery have exiled me.”

“Me and all my mystery,” he repeated the phrase softly, as if to himself.

“You know so much about me,” I insisted. “I know next to nothing about you.”

“Fine,” he splayed his hands again; surrender. “What must you know?”

“What are you even studying here?”

“Philosophy.”

“Why?”

“Why does anybody choose any path of formal study? I like it. Makes me feel calm. You have all of these discussions and use all these theories, and the general consensus is that there never is a consensus. It’s always up to the individual, their faith.”

“Do you have one?”“A faith?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not a pompous nihilist? I would have pinned you as a starch atheist. ‘God is dead’ and all of that.”

He snorted. “Hardly.”

“So what do you believe?”

“That God exists,” he said simply. “And that he is one hell of a sadist.”

“See,” I turned to flash him a grin. “There it is. I knew there was something like that in there.”

“To be fair,” he defended. “I do not claim that it is at all disorganized. I believe that any destructive moves made are the necessary and correct ones. Whether as punishment or reward.”

“How do you know which is which?”

He was silent, and I wondered if I hadn’t managed to catch him in some kind of corner. Eventually, as we made our way closer to the edge of my side of campus, he answered.

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“You’re young,” I tried. “You’ve got time, haven’t you?”

A sharp laugh came from his throat, and he was close enough to me that I could feel the movement in his shoulders.

“Yes. Yes you’re right. All the time in the world.”

Edward wanted to stay out of the woods. I teased him for being afraid, but he didn’t relent to my lighthearted attempts. In truth I wanted an excuse to meander, and potentially get lost as it was so allegedly easy to do. With these new revelations at hand, the prospect of spending hours with him in the quiet of the trees seemed less anxiety provoking, and more of an intriguing prospect. I was aware of his presence at every second. Every shift in his breath, every moment that he was looking at me. Every moment that he was not looking at me.

“What about your family?”

Insofar I had learned that Edward preferred the seclusion of this place, and had no desire to live in large cities. I learned that his favorite book was Anna Karenina. He preferred the sea to the mountains. His favorite color was navy blue. This information surpassed everything that had come out of last semester.

“I’m adopted, actually. I suppose I was orphaned,” he said. “My father is a doctor. I was the first that he and his wife Esme took in.”

“Oh,” I held my breath. I couldn’t very well just ask, could I?

My unsaid question was understood.

“My um,” he cleared his throat. “My mother died of a very serious illness. My father many years before, in an accident. I don’t remember much of him. I was mostly matured when I met Carlisle. He saved me.”

“Foster care is usually a nightmare,” I offered. “I’m really glad you didn’t have to endure anything like that for too long.”

“They both have very persistent spirits. Esme is unbelievable in her kindness, and my father has more wisdom and generosity than I thought possible.”

“You’re close enough to them that you consider them your parents, though?”

“Absolutely. I mourn my mother, Elizabeth, still, but Carlisle and Esme have done a fine job of raising me in her honor.”

“Thats…” I exhaled. “That’s very moving, Edward. I’m really glad that you have them.”

“Yes,” his smile seemed to dim. “There are few who can speak to what I would have become without them.”

“You’ve certainly become something that I’m sure anybody would be proud of.”

He stopped his movement, and I mirrored his motion, turning to face him. We were standing, again, at the last of the buildings, where the library stood, and the trees began to take over. We had lapped the entirety of the campus more than twice.

“I have become something, Bella,” he spoke softly, after much silence. “I won’t deny that.”

There had been the haze, and now there was the sharp realization that I was very close to him. I did not remember if he had been the one to approach me, or if I had been the one to approach him.  
I kept my eyes on his, and for the first time ever, something in them made me want to look away. As if there was a magnet, trying to pull my head in any other direction. But I forced myself steady, and felt the unyielding weight of his stare on mine. In a moment, the feeling had changed. The air was heavy. My skin felt tight. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.

“Why are you here?”

His voice was so low, I thought that I was not supposed to hear him.

“I,” I inhaled a sharp breath. My voice, frail. What could he possibly mean? Here, at this school? Here with him? My answer could not have been more than a whisper. “I don’t know.”

Stillness. The unbearable fear in his face. I could see it now in his eyes, twisted with anxiety. Hits of that original, terrible rage. If he had been breathing at all, he was close enough that I would have felt it.

But he was not.

Something loud, and disorienting.

Edward, now a few steps away from me, as if I had pushed him with all of my force.

The sharp ring of a cell phone, my counterpart fumbling for his pocket.

“Alice,” his voice was breathless. Relieved. His brow furrowed, his mouth opened. “Yes,” he swallowed. “Yes, I understand. Of course. I’ll come right over.”

He was speaking more calmly now, with a tone that exuded the hint of that thing which is undeniable. Who was Alice?

Something tightened in the back of my throat.

He clicked the phone off, lowered his hand tentatively, slowly. He looked as though he had been slapped, dazed and confused.

“I’m sorry,” he brought his eyes back up to mine again, only to quickly avert them.”I have to go. It’s my sister.”

“Oh,” I cleared my throat. “Of course.”

He was rushed, and it was only as he was actually gone from my vision, that I tried to break my own haze.

Stumbling back to the sidewalk, I felt chilled. I kept glancing back over my shoulder, unable to avoid to feeling of eyes at my back. Back in my room, I hoped, vaguely, that everything was alright.

I denied to myself my initial fear of his adamant love for another, unknown woman. It was a common confusion, I assured myself.

  
Somehow, the evening had properly exhausted me, and though not two hours had passed, I found myself fighting sleep.  
As I drifted, flashes.

Golden eyes, set in anguish and uncertainty, replaced by black irises, and a heavy dread.

That was the first night I dreamt of Edward Cullen.


End file.
